NCT01525303

Effects of Aerobic Exercise Within a Behavioral Treatment Program for Chronic Headaches

Additive Effects of Aerobic Exercise to a Standard Behavioral Self-Management Program for Chronic Headaches

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 5 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Mississippi Medical Center · Academic / Other
• Sex: Female
• Age: 18 Years – 64 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This proposed study seeks to examine whether adding an aerobic exercise prescription to a behavioral treatment program for chronic headaches will improve headache frequency and intensity, headache-related disability, and mood. It is hypothesized that participants who receive the exercise prescription at the start of treatment will show greater gains than those who receive the prescription halfway through treatment. It is also predicted that participants who begin the exercise component halfway through treatment will demonstrate greater improvement in the second half of treatment compared to the first half.

Detailed description

Aerobic exercise has long been discussed as a potential treatment for chronic headaches, though research in this area has been somewhat limited. It is warranted to consider the effectiveness of aerobic exercise as part of a larger headache management intervention. Early research in this area suggests that including an exercise component in conjunction with other effective forms of headache management, such as progressive muscle relaxation, biofeedback, and stress management, is associated with improvement in number of days with a headache, headache pain intensity and mood. None of these studies have specifically analyzed the effectiveness of the aerobic exercise component, though Lemestra et al. (2002) noted that participants who continued with their exercise regimen had better overall outcomes three months after the intervention ended. Given the high rates of obesity and the fact that many people do not meet the minimum daily requirement for exercise, it is worthwhile to investigate the additive effect of exercise to behavioral headache interventions.

Conditions

• Chronic Headaches

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Behavioral Treatment for Chronic Headache- Exercise Version	This behavioral treatment program consists of behavioral approaches to headache management: progressive muscle relaxation, stress-management training, and biofeedback. Skills for these techniques are presented during the clinic sessions, and supplemented with workbooks and audio CDs. In addition, all participants will receive a graduated exercise prescription of 20-30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise, five days per week. They will be instructed to assess the intensity of their exercise using the Borg perceived exertion scale. Client contact sessions are as follows: Clinic Session (CS)1; Phone Session (PS) 1 (end of week1), CS 2 (end of week 4); PS 2 (end of week 6); CS 3 (end of week 8).

Timeline

• Start date: 2011-12-01
• Primary completion: 2012-06-01
• Completion: 2012-08-01
• First posted: 2012-02-02
• Last updated: 2013-01-16

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States